Something Strange and Beautiful
by disquietus
Summary: Six years after disappearing completely out of Bella Swans life, leaving her heartbroken in the process, Edward Masen shows up in her small hometown, surrounded by mystery and determined to win her heart. AU
1. First Sighting

Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyer, obviously. I just like to play with them.

**Chapter 1: First Sighting**

_ Somebody was staring again. _

It was such a frequent occurrence in my life that after twenty two years I had learned to ignore it, but the feeling of eyes boring holes into the back of my head was still annoying. I considered turning around to give a Rosalie worthy glare to the offending party, but I knew it would be pointless. Unabashed gawking was the general reaction of people when we are all grouped together in the same place. I knew that sitting on the only loveseat - in the only coffee shop Forks had to offer - Rosalie squeezed in between Emmett and Jasper with Alice and I sprawled across their laps, legs tangled together, we made a ridiculously stunning picture. We could no more control this then people could control their staring. Not that we're all exceptionally beautiful or anything - well except for maybe Rose - but in a small town like Forks, which had never produced anybody that could be considered more then average, we were a novelty that the townsfolk of Forks still marveled over.

Emmett's sudden laughter - louder then normal when I was sitting on his lap like this - and shaking body, brought my attention back to my friends.

I glared at them, "What's so funny?"

"Mike was staring at Rosalie's boobs again," Alice answered between bursts of snorting laughter. "Rose winked at him, and he spilt his coffee all down the front of his pants."

I snickered. Mike Newton was a professional creep. Throughout the years he had been obsessed with each of us, for one ridiculous reason or another, so we took a special kind of pleasure whenever he publicly humiliated himself.

I followed the familiar sounds of Jessica Stanley, angrily hissing at Mike about making himself look like an idiot, to find them at a table directly behind my head. Well, that explained the staring. Jessica hated me probably more then anyone else in Forks, for reasons I had never been able to decipher. I wondered if she was more pissed about Mike staring at Rosalie, or the fact that he had spilt his drink and was now attacking the crotch of his pants with a pile of napkins. I couldn't stop myself from laughing, so I quickly buried my face in Emmett's shoulder before Jessica could look over and catch me staring. This seemed to set the rest of them off, because they all erupted into another round of laughter. This, of course, only made me laugh harder.

We were still laughing when somebody opened the door and a gust of cold hair hit us, causing a strange reaction in my friends.

Emmett's entire body stiffened, the hand he was resting on my hip clenched into a fist. Jasper appeared to have had a similar reaction, while Rose and Alice's eyes burned bright with anger. It took me an embarrassing amount of time to realize that it wasn't the cold air that had caused this reaction but whoever had walked through the door. I knew that I should probably turn around and see who it was, but I could think of only one person the four of them all felt such a strong hatred for, and I was in no mood to deal with Jacob Black tonight.

"What the hell is he doing here?" Rosalie hissed.

I sighed. Despite the bad blood after the ending of our relationship I was in no mood for one of Rosie's anti-Jacob tirades. They could go on for hours and it was a subject that was still painful at times.

"And why now, after all this time?" Alice asked. Now I was confused. I had just seen, or more accurately been forced to sit through an uncomfortable dinner with, Jacob yesterday. Curious, I turned my head slightly so that I was no longer facing Emmett's neck. And my world stopped.

_It's too hot in here_.

It was all I could think as I avoided the gaze of the boy…man, he'd be a man now, although he didn't seem to have changed at all over the years, standing by the counter.

I couldn't look at him. I didn't dare to. I both hoped and feared that I was seeing things, that I had finally lost my mind and the beautiful boy who had haunted every aspect of my life for the last six years was just a figment of my imagination.

Obviously I was, it was inconceivable that after disappearing so completely out of my life without so much as a goodbye, _Edward Masen _would suddenly reappear here and now.


	2. Nighttime Visitor

Disclaimer: Characters and all that jazz belong to Stephanie Meyer. I just let them live in my head sometimes.

Special thanks to my beta Jasmine. We were written in the stars babe, I love you 3

Chapter 2: Nighttime Visitor

When my eyes finally met his, time seemed to stand still.

Voices in The Bean became muffled and distant, everything around me washed away by the mere sight - until there was nothing left but Edward. His expression surprised and horrified. Myself, too shocked to speak, let alone make a move to get off Emmett's lap and go towards him. Although, touching him - making sure that he was really there - was a top priority.

And then he was gone.

My world was still spinning, and he had turned around and was out the door before I could even blink, or begin to properly breathe again.

"Bella…Bella…BELLS!"

It wasn't until Rosalie took a chunk of my hair and pulled that I realized they were all staring at me. I was still staring at the door. Although, I had moved myself into a sitting position, my knees clutched to my chest.

"Let's get out of here." Alice said quietly.

I nodded slowly, but before I could slide off Emmett's lap he had already scooped me up. I realized that he intended to carry me to the car, and suddenly found that I was still capable of speech after all.

"Emmett, put me down!" I hissed, acutely aware of the staring townsfolk and the heat of a blush staining my cheeks, "I can walk you know."

"Can you?" he asked. I could here the doubt in his voice and it irritated me. So, even though I wasn't entirely sure myself - I still felt shaky - I nodded and he set me down gently. I stumbled a bit at first, I knew that he noticed because he shot me a sharp look, but didn't say anything.

We reached Rosalie's shiny red BMW and I settled into the back next to her and Alice. I stared moodily out the window and waited for somebody to say something, but nobody spoke.

The drive back to our house was unusually silent. Normally Emmett insisted on having the music as loud as possible to drown out the sounds of our incessant chattering. His reasoning, not mine. But there was not music tonight, and not chatter. I'd have preferred it if there was. The drive was almost 40 minutes, even with Emmett at the wheel. The house Rosalie and Jasper had inherited was on the very outskirts of town, almost in the forest.

Unbroken silence allowed me no distractions from the memories flooding my mind. Memories I'd spent the last six years doing my best to suppress during my waking hours.

I'd first met Edward Masen the summer right before I'd turned sixteen. Rosalie, Jasper and I had gone down to LA with Alice and Emmett to spend the summer with them at their grandparents beach house in Santa Monica.

_I spread my bright orange beach towel out across the sand, a good distance away from where Rosalie and Emmett faced Alice and Jasper in a game of two on two volleyball. I tried to lay down on my stomach so that I could watch, but it was too uncomfortable so I rolled over onto my back, becoming engrossed in my worn out copy of Wuthering Heights._

"_Is that good?" an unfamiliar voice asked._

_Startled by the sudden intrusion, I dropped my book as I tried to sit up. Apparently he didn't expect me to make any movements, though, because he made no move to get out of my way and our heads knocked together loudly._

"_Oh god," I groaned, rubbing my head as I felt the familiar heat of a blush creeping up my face, "I'm so sorry." He laughed and sat down in front of me._

"_Don't be. It's my own fault, I should have known better then to creep up on an unsuspecting reader. So is it?"_

_It took a few seconds for his words to catch up with my brain._

_He was just so…beautiful. It really was the only word I could think of to properly describe him. His hair was all over the place, a golden bronze shade I wasn't entirely sure you could find outside of a bottle, but looked entirely real. It suited his face, the full lips, sharp cheekbones and especially his eyes, which were the same color green as the emeralds Alice's grandmother had worn to dinner last night. And his body…there really just were no words. He was tall, I could see that even though he was sitting, and really muscular, but not in a bulky way like Emmett._

_He was perfect, I decided._

"_Oh. Y-yes, its very good." I stuttered out, flustered._

_I knew I should be annoyed that he was having this effect on me, when I was used to being the one causing such a reaction, but I could think of no reason I would ever be annoyed by this boy._

_He held out a hand, "Edward Masen."_

_Charmed, I returned his handshake smiling, "Bella Swan."_

I was broken out of the memory by the car suddenly stopping, not even realizing we had reached our driveway.

Inside, I went straight upstairs to my room, shutting and locking the door behind me. I knew it was unlikely I'd sleep tonight, but I didn't feel like talking either, and I knew Alice wouldn't be able to stay silent for long.

I put off bed for as long as possible, took a long shower, trying to keep my mind empty as the hot water poured over me, soothing as always. I waited until the water began to run cold before getting out and starting the long process of drying my hair. When I finished, I couldn't think of any more legitimate reasons to put bed off, so I laid down, closed my eyes and waited for the dreams to come.

I dreamed of him, just as I knew I would. Just as I had every night since that summer.

This dream was the same in many ways, but different too. The setting had changed, for the first time that I could remember.

We were not on the beach, as we had always been before, but in a meadow surrounded by wildflowers in varying shades of purple, white and yellow. It looked familiar, but my subconscious didn't find it important enough to try to place.

"_I always knew I'd see you again." I said, staring deep into his strange golden eyes. I wondered about that, the change of eye color. But, like the meadow, it didn't seem important enough to linger on._

"_Did you?" he asked, my favorite crooked smile spreading across his face._

"_Of course. We were written in the stars, remember? You said so yourself." I responded, tracing patterns onto the palm of his hand._

"_Did I?" he asked, the smile still on his face, although the warmth was gone from it._

_I nodded, a familiar sense of dread building in me as the air grew steadily colder._

"_Did I mean it?" he asked. His eyes were no longer gold, but black as the night surrounding us._

_I blinked, "I-I don't know." I stuttered, forcing myself to look away from his gaze._

_That was when I realized he was fading. I began to panic, clenching his hands tighter, staring into his eyes. But his face was a blank mask, his eyes black and devoid of any emotion._

"_Don't go Edward, please don't go. I love you." I pleaded, but he showed no reaction to my begging. His expression remained cold and distant while he continued to fade, until there was nothing left in the meadow but my sobs._

I woke up that way, sobbing and sweating.

I sat up in my bed, fumbling for the switch on my lamp. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed an unfamiliar shadow in the corner of my room. I turned slightly to check it out and my heart stopped.

For half a second I would have sworn that Edward was standing in the corner by my window, a horrified expression on his face, but when I finally got the light on there was nothing there.


End file.
